Super Thursday: 225 books compete for the Christmas run-up

On Super Thursday a swarm of titles was launched to scale the charts. Sameer
Rahim looks at the contenders.

By Sameer Rahim

1:56PM BST 29 Sep 2011

This week saw the starting pistol fired in the rush for Christmas book sales. On September 29, known as “Super Thursday”, more than 225 books were published. Expected fiction bestsellers such as The Fear Index by Robert Harris and The Affair by Lee Child rub up alongside actors’ autobiographies such as Absolutely by Joanna Lumley and May I Have Your AttentionPlease? by James Corden.

The publishers’ theory is that in order to become a bestseller a book must build up a head of steam. Once you see other people reading a book on the train or picking it up in a bookshop you are more likely to buy it yourself – and the longer you have to allow a book to seep into public consciousness the better, even if it is still three months until Christmas.

In 2008 the number of books coming out on Super Thursday reached 800. Recognising that this jostling for position was not doing anyone much good, this year the big books are more spread out to give each one space to breathe. So Claire Tomalin’s biography of Dickens comes out on October 6 and the comedian Rob Brydon’s Small Man in a Book on October 13.

It is the job of a publisher to make sure their author is given the best chance of success. But giving the buying public a longer time to make up their mind before Christmas Day can also rebound. Once the initial excitement of buying the life story of your favourite comedian has gone, you have to be sustained by the work itself. If it turns out to be a ghost-written rush-job with little of the artist’s original sparkle then there is always the chance the book will curl up and die before it reaches the wrapping paper.On Super Thursday a swarm of titles was launched to scale the charts. Sameer Rahim looks at the contenders